Sir, In common with some 800 others, I am a member of this town’s social club, a members-only club founded in 1915. We members own the club, its premises and its assets. For some 60 years, at least, since a landmark case involving the supply of alcohol, it has been accepted that for most legal purposes such a club’s premises are effectively an extension of the private homes of its members. We are not a pub; you cannot walk in off the street and use the amenities or buy a drink; and you cannot even enter the premises unless you are an official visitor or are signed in by a member.

Notwithstanding this the House of Commons has chosen not only to determine what I — a non-smoker — and my fellow members may do in our private, quasi-homes, but has also imposed legal penalties for non-compliance (report, Feb 15). This is but the latest restriction of liberty imposed upon the nation by a grossly illiberal majority in the House, led by an even more illiberal Government, and will in due course doubtless be followed by a smoking ban in homes.

Does the ban apply within the Palace of Westminster?

MICHAEL BROWN
Highbridge, Somerset

Sir, Much better would have been a system to require licences to allow smoking, similar to the licence for selling alcohol. The cost of the licence could have been set so as to discourage smoking by ensuring that, perhaps, only a quarter of such venues choose to afford it.

Thus smoking would have been discouraged while allowing those who choose to smoke to pay (albeit, yet again) for the privilege. More radically, funds raised by the licences could be used by local authorities to support local GPs, hospitals and hospices, to prevent any Chancellor from using such revenue to fund general expenditure.

CARL CHAMBERS
Brighton

Sir, Just as we look back on slavery, and wonder how any intelligent person can have been in favour, will people in 50, or even ten, years find it hard to understand that, back in the old days, many actually thought it socially and morally acceptable to puff tobacco smoke into the atmosphere of a room in which there were other people?

ROBERT STONE
Worcester

Sir, Supposing that all smokers immediately stopped, what would be the likely effect in terms of job losses and total cost to the Treasury? What would that cost translate into as an increase in income tax?

M. F. CLEWS
Daventry, Northants

Sir, As a non-smoker and a medical practitioner I am fully aware of the effects of smoking and I would enthusiastically encourage any smoker to stop.

However, many of our lawmakers seem not to have considered the consequences of banning smoking in all public houses. They are not only denying smokers the right to enjoy their legal habit with others of like mind, but they ignore that health and safety legislation has proved itself well able to protect workers from far more noxious gases than secondhand cigarette smoke.

Having been driven from all public places, smokers will return to their homes. Many of those homes will contain infants and children, who are at most risk from the effects of secondary smoking and most deserve the protection of society. Perhaps the more enlightened members of the second chamber will consider this point when the Bill comes to them for consideration.

DR C. H. BROOKINGS
Collyweston, Northants

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